


One Day I'll Fly Away

by WildeRaven



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Moulin Rouge! (2001), Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Moulin Rouge! Fusion, Alternate Universe - Phantom of the Opera Fusion, Erik Has Feelings, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-14 04:52:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9162826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildeRaven/pseuds/WildeRaven
Summary: Phantom of the Opera meets Moulin Rouge - Erik, a writer, maestro, and assassin falls in love with poor nanny, can-can dancer, and occasional escort Christine Daae - who just so happens to have the voice of an angel.





	1. Showtime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Winters_Red_Star](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winters_Red_Star/gifts).



> Hi everyone - thank you so much for reading! This is my first fic combining 2 of my favorite stories and I'm so excited to see what you think! This is for my wonderful friend Winters_Red_Star for being my editor and inspiration :)
> 
> minor cw for alcohol, mention of drug use, future mentions of non-con - please don't hesitate to let me know if anything else should be tagged!

**Chapter 1**

  
Christine exhaled softly as she rolled her silk stocking over her knee, pinching and tugging it around her calf a bit to hide a run, about the size of her little finger, behind her knee.  
“Damn it,” she muttered, clipping the top of her stocking to her black lace garter belt.

“Lace looks sexier and more delicate,” Madame Giry had said, as she handed out the new costumes, “at least, according to the Monsieur Firmin.” Monsieur Firmin owned the Moulin Rouge.

  
“Meg, could you help me for a minute?” Christine called, grabbing the back of the shoddy wooden chair at her dressing table and looking behind her expectantly, glancing down at the loose ribbons hanging down from the bottom of her black and red striped corset.

  
“Of course love!” Meg practically floated over - with her fine blonde hair and small, delicate - almost birdlike - frame, she was a natural dancer. She belonged pirouetting on stage at the Royal Opera, not here shaking her behind and being leered at by greedy men with groping hands. Her mother, Madame Giry, was once the principal ballet dancer at the Royal Opera - that is, until she became pregnant with the then married patron...At the call of Madam Patron, she was dismissed at once. So here she ended up, first as a dancer, to support her daughter, now as the head choreographer of the Moulin Rouge.

  
“Ouch!” Christine exclaimed, knuckles turning white around the top of the chair in front of her. Meg knew how to lace a corset, and that final tug put an unbearable amount of pressure on her bruised rib. One of her “patrons” a couple weeks back had been a bit rough (beyond the usual spanking or tie-me-up-hold-me-down.) Most of her bruises had faded, but her ribs were still tender.

  
“Christine, are you alright?” Meg asked, eyes wide and worried.

  
“Yeah, of course...just pinched me is all..” Christine murmured rather unconvincingly as she stared at the floor, cheeks burning. She couldn’t bear the embarrassment of telling her best friend that she’d resorted to selling herself to the wealthy men who hung around the club after closing - who wanted more than a show and a drink. They were drunk and sloppy and sometimes cruel, but they paid well when she could find one. Her landlord Mr. Buquet (which was a generous description, considering he ignored the complaints of the tenants and never made sure there was coal for the stove or plaster for the leaks in the ceiling) had raised her rent again - 60 francs a month for a 6ft by 9ft room and a mattress on the floor in a boarding house that wasn’t even in central Paris - and she still had to eat. She had a 20 minute walk to and from work each day. During the day she cared for the three year old child of a wealthy family - they paid her well, when they remembered - 30 francs a month, which was good for an orphan girl of her status. She got off at 5 pm, and took the half hour long trolley ride from the wealthy side of town to the darker side for her 10 minute walk to the Moulin Rouge. Every day was long but she needed the money, more than her meager pay as a dancer - if you could call it that.

  
Christine was ashamed. Her father, before his death, had been an incredible musician - a violinist - and she use to sing along while he played. She loved to sing, but now her only opportunity was singing under her breath, or nursery rhymes to the baby she looked after. The only singing that went on at the Moulin Rouge - besides the giddy, drunk men - came from Carlotta Firmin. She was the main attraction - she sang of love and faraway lands, sometimes swinging on a rope swing garnished with flower wreaths, sometimes in bustiers encrusted with real crystals. She wasn’t a great singer by any means, but she was, after all, the wife of the owner of the club - and oh, she was beautiful. Carlotta had shiny, thick black hair that fell in soft waves around her ivory face. She had long, dark, lush eyelashes that framed her brown, almost almond shaped eyes. She had a beauty mark - Christine and Meg still didn’t know if it was real or drawn on - over the left corner of her full, rosy mouth. She always wore red lipstick. Her full breasts, almost white in contrast to the dark satin of her corset, spilled over in a fantastic display of cleavage that probably could (and did) make grown men cry. She had an hourglass figure - enhanced by her corset and full thighs and behind. She always wore extremely high heels that accentuated her shapely legs.

  
“Ok...as long as you’re ok Christine,” Meg pecked her cheek, “I’ll see you before the show!” She tied a bow at the end of Christine’s corset and scurried off to practice - as if she needed to! She was perfect. Christine smiled halfheartedly as her as Meg walked off, her eyes glued to Carlotta’s reflection in her mirror. She was wearing a red, full length oriental robe over her costume, and an exquisite crystal diadem that looked like the moon, shimmering against her jet black hair. Not only did she look like a queen, she lived like one. Rumor has it that while traveling in the Italian countryside, Monsieur Firmin saw her dancing in a show outside his inn put on by a traveling caravan. It was love at first sight, and after a night of passion he brought her back to Paris and they were wed at once.

  
Christine sighed, sitting on the creaky wooden chair. She bent down to lace up her boots, spitting on her thumb to rub at the scuffed black leather. She lined her eyes with black kohl, and filled in her lips with red paint - her nightly stage look. She wasn’t ugly, she decided - but definitely not goddess-like like Carlotta or nymphish like Meg. Trying to look more alive, she dotted rouge on her high cheek bones, that now jutted out harshly from her once full cheeks. Her pale skin looked almost sallow - after all, she could barely afford a loaf of bread and bit of cheese after paying her rent for the month. Sighing, she tucked a chestnut brown curl behind her ear that had somehow fallen out of the ribbon and hoard of pins holding back her unruly hair. Her curls had always had a mind of their own; she smiled slightly at the thought of her father’s knees against her back as she sat on the floor, pins in his mouth as he tried to braid the rat’s nest she called her hair.

  
“You’re just like a gorgon, I swear! Same hair as your mother!” Her father joked as he weaved together the thick strands. When he had tamed her mane as best he could, she always pretended to turn him to stone. It was only a matter of time before the brown tendrils would start to spring free. Christine couldn’t blame him, of course - he had to teach himself to braid after all, as her mother had passed away during childbirth. Oh, how she missed her father. She wished that he could somehow be here again. She smiled at the memory, pinning her red velvet cap a bit askew on her head. The first act of the night was the classic can-can. Christine sighed as she tugged on her bloomers and then her ruffled petticoat - black silk on the outside, red ruffles underneath. The finishing touch, after her black silk opera gloves, was the the black velvet ribbon she tied around her slender neck. It looked so stark against the pale curve of her neck, but distracted from her dangerously hollow collarbones.

  
“Ladies! Let’s go!” Madame Giry called out, slamming her cane against the floor once, “Places everyone! _Now!_ The show is about to begin!” Christine hurried to her place next to Meg, behind the curtain. Meg smiled at her, excited as she always was before a performance. The curtain began to rise, and the band started to play. Christine smirked back before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Then she felt the startling heat of the lights hit her over-rouged cheeks. _Showtime_. 


	2. Inside My Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik discovers Christine - it was only a matter of time right?? :P

**Chapter 2**

  
Tiny snowflakes drifted down slowly from the pale sky as dusk started to fall over Paris. The clouds were heavy and grey, they looked like they were about to burst at any moment - a storm was coming. Erik could not only see it, he could feel it in the air. The cold wind felt like knives across his exposed chin - he couldn't feel anything on the rest of his face for it was concealed by a thick black leather mask, molded to give him some semblance of a human face. Even without it, he had lost almost all feeling in his facial region anyway. He was out looking for the back alley entrance of an opium den in the heart of the wealthiest area in the city. His latest contract had brought him here - a wealthy broker by day who enjoyed debauchery and opium induced hazes by night. He hadn’t paid his dealer. “Idiot…” Erik muttered, smirking into his black cashmere scarf - he had pulled it up and over his chin and lips after the sting of the biting wind. It was completely quiet in the gathering dusk, like it always was before the snow came. He easily located the secret door. “Morons, all of them…” Erik thought. He was never much impressed by the temperament of man or this so-called civilization. There was nothing civil about it. He preferred the philosophy of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes: “The life of man; solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” After all, he’d never experienced it any other way. Nowhere could he find one scrape of kindness that other philosophers were so keen to insist existed. And he’d read a lot of philosophy. He’d read a lot of books in general, as he had lived a solitary life; as one should if they’re as hideous as he was.

  
As a child, he had been cast from his home by his hateful mother, wallowing in her own self pity to have been cursed with a son possessing such an abhorrent face. For a while he traveled around the world with a freak show. As a young man, Erik had escaped and worked as a weapons contractor and an assassin for royalty in Persia. Now, in his early to mid thirties (he didn’t know his birthday, and only approximately how old he was), he had settled down in Paris. He was an author and a poet - and more famously, the principal composer for the Royal Opera and (if the opportunity presented itself) a skilled assassin. As payment (beyond francs) for his brilliance, he was allowed to inhabit the space underneath the opera house - and there he dwelled, most of the time, unless he had to scout for a kill - like tonight. He was just about to slip into the shadows and back into the belly of the Palais Garnier when he heard the most incredible sound he had ever heard. When it came to singing, Erik was a harsh critic. He had heard many a singing voice in his day, but none as pure and beautiful as this - even as it sang the simple, cliche notes of a well known nursery rhyme, it sounded like it belonged to a true angel. Erik lay back against the cold brick of the alley wall, closing his eyes and inhaling sharply, enraptured. For a few seconds he was lost in the sweet sound - but then he realized he did not know who - or what - made it. He peered around the corner at the almost empty street. All he saw on the dimly lit cobblestone was a young woman with her back to him, walking away towards the high class residences. She was pushing a pram, and she had curly chestnut curls that danced, uncovered, in the icy breeze. A ragged red scarf twirled in the wind behind her as she sang to the child; the source of the sound that carried through the air and caressed his ears. 

Lost in the beautiful sight, he almost didn’t notice that the song had started to fade as she made her way further down the darkening street. Then, before he realized what he was doing, he slipped briskly through the shadows, breathless, following - he almost needed to hear her sweet voice. “What are you doing…” Erik thought. He had never felt out of control of his body before - or, frankly, refused to ever again - after he was carted around for years, thrust in front of laughing crowds all over the world, called the devil’s child. After he finally broke free, he was consumed by rage and hatred for himself, the world - everything. Over the years he had worked day and night, hour by hour - even second by second to control his mind, his body, and his rage. His only outlet was the criminal underground where he picked up his unsavory jobs - the only time he could truly lose control. He savoured it both for its thrills and its ability to test his discipline. And yet...this voice. He had to find the source. He didn’t deserve to even gaze upon her face or even have her voice grace his ears. She was angelic, he was demonic and bathed in blood. He hesitated for a moment before he continued to follow.

  
*******

  
Erik had been waiting for almost an hour in the alley across from the well lit home. He didn’t even feel the cold. His breath caught in his throat when he finally saw the door open and the small girl - woman - step out onto the stoop, stopping to pull on her woolen gloves that exposed her slim fingers. It was snowing heavily now. She was almost as beautiful as her voice. From what he could make out in the dim light, she was pale - her hair flowed softly around her face - she had full lips, and high cheekbones. He noticed that her cheekbones stuck out a bit too much. She looked tired, and hungry. She seemed to look right at him, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. Yet even still, Erik was blown away. After the original awe, he quickly averted his eyes - someone like him didn’t have the right to look upon someone so pure and lovely. It made his heart ache. She sighed, seeming to square her shoulders and ready herself before slipping into the snow. Erik didn’t know why, but he had to follow. He had to see where this angel would lead.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have Chapter 3 ready to post if you're interested - sorry if it's a bit boring/short, I want to set everything up first. As always, I welcome your comments and reviews and thanks for reading!


	3. An Angel in Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik sees the show and finds out more about his angel...

Erik squirmed in his lush red velvet chair. The performance was about to start. She had led, after the trolley station, to the infamous cabaret Moulin Rouge on the Boulevard de Clichy. He had never been there before - debauchery and drunkenness were never his style. Being around beautiful women only reminded him of what a monstrosity he was and what he couldn’t have - and drunk men just tended to make him angry. They were brutish, disrespectful, and handsy. They saw women and everyone around them as their property. Erik, having been property for far too long, did not have much tolerance for these men’s inflated views. _“Good for nothings…_ ” he thought to himself, “ _their wives are probably at home waiting for them, waiting for them to come home so they can lie on their backs while their husbands thrust one or two times into them as think of one of these mistresses here.”_ His long fingers, cloaked in supple black leather gloves, curved around the edge of the gaudy armrests on his chair. These men had - no, were lucky enough to have - wives and probably children at home who cared for them - something he would, could never experience - and yet they squandered their time here with their mouths wrapped around a liquor bottle or between a pair of breasts. The lights dimmed. Erik inhaled sharply - what was he _doing_ here?

“Ladies and gentlemen...welcome to the Moulin Rouge! Without further ado, I present for all of your...carnal…” the emcee chuckled lewdly, “pleasures, our outrageous and certainly bodacious...ladies in..the can-can!”

The curtains lifted. Erik - even with his mask and keen eyesight - was temporarily blinded. The lights were bright - and the costumes brighter. The dancers stood all in a row, arm in arm - like a river of colored silk, lace, and rouge. Erik impatiently scanned the line of dancers, looking for the telltale chestnut curls. He spotted her almost instantly, wearing a red and black silk number - a striped corset with a black skirt and red petticoat. There, standing towards the end - almost in the corner - on the left side of the stage, was his angel. Even with the heavy black kohl around her eyes, the bright rouge on her cheeks, and the red paint on her full lips, he recognized her. He almost had to pinch himself. She was breathtaking. “She is not yours and never will be, such a sweet girl would never want to be around you and nor would she deserve to…” He snapped to his senses as the music began to speed up and they began to dance. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the exposed band of her thighs when she kicked in time with the other dancers. The black lace of her stockings and garters contrasted with her pale skin - an almost ghostly white in comparison to her brightly colored costume. Her gloved hands gracefully held up the corner of her skirt, and he noticed her sneak a genuine smile - not the mock one she had been wearing for show - at a small blonde to her right. Erik closed his eyes and inhaled, hand still gripping the armrest of his chair. With his other hand he took a sip from the whiskey glass sitting in front of him on the table. He considered leaving, but he could not tear his eyes away. A shock of rage went through him at her position in the group - she should be front and center. He would have to do something about that, he decided. No one as perfect as her belonged as a simple chorus girl. Even after the curtain came down, he was in awe. He eagerly awaited her next number like he had awaited nothing before - besides his freedom.

***

Erik didn’t care about the finale - it was just some woman - albeit stunning (not like his angel, however) - who had a less than mediocre singing voice that bordered on insufferable. She had jet black hair and an enormous bosom, which is probably why no one seemed to care that - at least to him - she sounded like a dying animal. She was sitting on a swing, wearing a crystal bustier with a pale blue chiffon train that hung almost six feet in the air below her. On her head she wore a crystal diadem shaped like the moon and stars. The chorus girls had already taken their bows, but Erik imagined his angel sitting up on that swing, singing about love by moonlight. He stood up before she finished, and walked over to the bar for a shot of rum to warm him his insides. He never really, truly felt warm - that’s why the cold never bothered him much, but he did enjoy the toasty buzz a shot of good spirits could send through his slender chest. He wanted to leave before the rush, and - he admitted to himself - he wanted to see if he could learn more about this angel of music. After getting his coat, scarf, and top hat from the coat room, he slipped behind the club, into the alleyway across the street from the stage door. As he waited, veiled in shadow, he watched the flame dance in the gaslamp that lit up the street leading from the door. About twenty minutes passed, with Erik waiting, not moving save for the steam coming from his mouth as each breath collided with the icy air. It was snowing again. He was ready to give up for the night; go home and drink himself to sleep, when he heard the door creak open. Three chorus girls came out, and two went one direction. The other hesitated, looking up at the gaslamp wistfully after waving and watching her friends go their separate ways. In the dim light he could make out her face - it was his angel. She looked so small, shoulders hunched, wrapped in her red scarf. She glanced down at her bare hands, then pulled the same gray pair of threadbare fingerless gloves over her pale, slim fingers. She breathed into her cupped hands once, then rubbed them together. Looking left and right, she started to walk alone down the dark street. Erik cursed under his breath. This was a dangerous neighborhood at night - there were pickpockets and drunk old men, stray dogs...he had to follow her home, he told himself - just to make sure she got there safely. So he followed, no less than 25 paces behind her. She occasionally glanced over her right shoulder, as if she was worried someone could be stalking her in the night. If she only knew...Erik thought to himself, a barrage of self-loathing suddenly flowing through him. She arrived at what looked like an abandoned boarding house. At closer inspection, he realized it wasn’t abandoned at all. He could vaguely see flickering gas lights and candles through the soot stained windows. The girl hesitated before walking in, looking around her in a seemingly hopeless way, like an animal in a trap. A drunk old man sat on the stoop, pulling at her skirts as she walked through the door. As she disappeared into the darkness, the snow started to fall heavier in the slushy, empty street. Erik stood there for a while, watching the snowflakes that fell silently fall and dissolve into the filthy puddle by the curb in front of him. An angel in hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update! Life got in the way - please feel free to comment and review and I hope I have chapter 4 up for you soon! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hesitate to leave me comments and reviews - seeing as how it's my first fic I need all the help I can get...they will be much appreciated!
> 
> I have the first 3 chapters written so I'll post those quickly - I'm on break from college atm so eventually i won't have as much time to write, but I'm gonna try really hard to stay with it!


End file.
